See the 14 answer words debuted by Narayan Venkatasubramanyan.
S | T | A | G | E | E | G | O | T | P | E | R | P | ||
E | A | G | E | R | G | R | E | A | T | A | P | E | S | |
W | H | A | T | A | G | O | O | D | B | O | Y | A | M | I |
E | O | S | A | I | G | L | U | G | ||||||
R | E | P | A | S | T | S | D | E | C | A | N | T | S | |
S | C | O | T | T | I | S | H | P | O | E | T | |||
U | S | T | A | U | N | A | F | L | U | |||||
S | P | I | N | N | I | N | G | W | H | E | E | L | ||
R | U | E | O | V | I | O | R | E | S | |||||
B | R | A | S | S | S | E | C | T | I | O | N | |||
G | Y | R | A | T | E | S | O | D | D | S | O | C | K | |
L | A | S | Y | O | N | B | A | E | ||||||
F | R | O | M | S | T | E | M | T | O | S | T | E | R | N |
H | A | D | A | H | U | N | C | H | O | H | Y | A | Y | |
A | D | E | N | D | D | A | Y | P | A | S | T | A |
NARAYAN: For over a decade, I lived the life of a quasi-single Indian-American dad in Texas with a live-in Chinese mother-in-law (no, this isn't the failed pilot for a sitcom!). Soon after she moved in, I was banished from the kitchen. I was happy to oblige because she was a brilliant cook who soon learned to cater to my Indian tastes and vegetarian restrictions. Her English wasn't very good, but it was far better than my Mandarin, so that became our medium of broken communication.
One day, she offered to make "calm" soup for dinner. I had no idea what that meant, but I figured it had to be good ... but even after soup was served, I couldn't see what made it (or me) "calm". After a few more instances of this, I realized that she was actually saying "com", not "calm". Of course, that makes even less sense. She was puzzled by my questions about the contents of the soup, so she brought me a can of com. That's when it hit me: between her poor command of the language, her less-than-perfect eyesight, and poor kerning on the can label, she had misread "corn" as "com". And a therne was bom!
I shared this theme with Ashish, and we batted around possibilities like "burn" for "bum", "garner" for "gamer", etc. Once we had enough fodder for a puzzle, Ashish came up with a bit of brilliance for the revealer: "from stem to stern" offered a clean way to tie it all together.
A | D | A | M | Y | A | P | A | T | R | H | O | M | B | E | G | G | S | |||
F | I | N | E | O | R | A | M | A | A | S | P | C | A | L | E | A | K | |||
T | A | K | E | O | U | T | O | F | C | O | N | T | E | X | T | L | A | Z | E | |
A | G | A | T | H | A | S | M | O | N | K | D | I | E | S | I | R | A | E | ||
S | N | A | P | O | L | A | A | S | S | |||||||||||
B | L | O | O | D | L | E | S | S | R | E | V | O | L | U | T | I | O | N | ||
G | O | A | D | M | E | R | C | K | I | D | A | S | T | O | A | |||||
E | N | C | O | R | E | T | H | E | M | I | S | S | I | N | G | L | I | N | K | |
L | I | T | R | E | D | E | M | I | N | A | S | E | C | |||||||
I | T | I | R | O | O | T | S | T | H | O | M | M | C | A | N | |||||
D | O | C | T | O | R | S | W | I | T | H | O | U | T | B | O | R | D | E | R | S |
E | U | R | O | A | R | E | A | I | N | A | L | L | N | E | A | |||||
S | T | R | A | T | I | R | N | A | E | A | G | A | N | |||||||
S | P | A | R | E | N | O | E | X | P | E | N | S | E | A | D | V | I | C | E | |
E | K | G | S | O | T | B | T | O | N | A | L | I | N | T | R | |||||
E | A | T | S | S | H | O | O | T | S | A | N | D | L | E | A | V | E | S | ||
A | N | T | X | O | O | S | P | A | R | |||||||||||
L | O | M | I | L | O | M | I | N | L | E | R | A | T | L | A | N | T | A | ||
I | R | A | N | L | E | M | O | N | D | R | O | P | C | O | O | K | I | E | S | |
D | A | Z | E | E | R | A | S | E | O | S | C | A | R | I | N | R | E | |||
S | L | E | D | N | E | X | U | S | S | A | S | S | Y | N | A | N | A |
V | I | E | W | R | O | A | M | A | S | P | E | N | ||
E | S | C | A | P | E | K | E | Y | S | H | A | V | E | |
S | A | C | H | A | B | A | R | O | N | C | O | H | E | N |
T | O | E | D | A | Y | O | O | A | T | |||||
O | R | T | S | A | S | P | I | R | I | N | ||||
D | O | N | E | E | T | G | I | N | O | N | E | |||
W | I | N | O | S | R | E | A | R | T | P | K | E | ||
E | D | A | M | C | E | N | S | E | H | E | L | D | ||
L | A | D | A | A | R | O | S | E | E | D | E | L | ||
L | S | A | T | T | E | R | I | R | A | I | S | E | ||
E | E | R | O | C | A | S | T | E | R | N | S | |||
S | T | E | P | D | A | D | A | H | E | M | ||||
O | W | L | E | L | A | L | T | A | U | |||||
T | H | R | E | E | L | I | T | T | L | E | P | I | G | S |
N | O | O | I | L | S | C | H | E | D | U | L | E | A | |
T | R | I | A | L | M | H | O | S | R | E | E | F |